(From christianpost.com, 5/17/23) – A Christian couple in Iran have been freed from prison after serving 9 months of an 11 year sentence. Their “crime” was to meet in a house church. Note that Iran has the fastest growing evangelical Christian population in the world and underground house churches are common. In his surprise ruling, the judge said that meeting in home groups was not “illegal” but rather “natural”! The husband had been sentenced to 11 years and the wife to 2 years in prison before being released this week. Mansour Borji, director of Article 18 (an advocacy group), said in a press statement that the initial 2020 verdict showed how for decades intelligence institutions within the Islamic Republic “have disregarded judicial processes and the law of the land.”